This three-part, multimedia series examined the U.S. government’s role in helping to bring the drug buprenorphine to market as a treatment for addiction to heroin and other narcotics and the consequences ofthose decisions. The series found that the drug, though widely hailed by many specialists in the field as a highly effective treatment, is beginning to cause the sorts of problems it was intended to displace. The series documented for the first time that buprenorphine has become one more item for sale in the illegal drug markets, particularly in New England, the area with the highest rate of prescriptions for its use. Reporters also uncovered overdose deaths that the government-ordered surveillance systems set up by the drug’s manufacturer had failed to detect. Similar problems with abuse ofbuprenorphine also were documented in several other countries, including France, which has long been cited as a model for the U.S. The investigation also found that some ofthe drug’s main selling points to Congress–notably that it would not be abused by injecting-have proven to be wrong-and that U.S. Food and Drug Administration examiners had anticipated some of these problems. The series also examined the city of Baltimore’S aggressive campaign to use buprenorphine to combat heroin addiction.
